Euphemisms for death just kill me

No, actually, scrub the haunting joke. I won’t come back. I’m a hard rationalist, who doesn’t believe in ghosts or life after death. The precise problem with our journey towards woolly euphemism in the sphere of death is that sentiment is starting to beat science. And in today’s world of untruth, we have never needed the tough clarity of science more.

So please, say it like it is. Be bold and direct. I am particularly allergic to “passed” in any form because it implies the soul undergoing a religious transition. The language of death, hijacked by the millennials – and now, worse, gen Z – is becoming one of enforced timidity: wordy, florid and filled with woo-woo. “Death”, “die” and “dead” are increasingly, among younger people, regarded as unsayable, impolite and insensitive.

Language matters. As with disability, censorship and sanctimony over the choice of words, often by the people least affected, does few favours for those most affected. I have an intimate perspective on disability, life and death. And I want clarity.

Death needs a jolly good subeditor – a good, brisk spring-clean in sparse, neutral language. “Passed away” fails the first test, using two words where one will do. “Died” is splendidly lean: four letters, job done. All flesh is grass.

Besides, “passed” is wholly ambiguous – passed what exactly? An exam? The ketchup? And so too is “passed on”. A secondhand coat, perhaps? Good advice?

I do not doubt that the trend is well intentioned. But these expressions are maudlin and fuzzy, open to magical interpretation. As euphemisms go, I can just about accept someone who says they lost a family member – “we lost Dad the year before last” – but without any sense of historical perspective, it could just mean losing him in a supermarket (which I’ve done several times now with my husband – and it’s nightmare, because he forgets he has to pay for things).

If we do have to use euphemisms, let them at least be unusual. The Victorians had some crackers. I love the grim weight of “removed from this tenement of clay”, the melancholic “empty chair” (appropriate for me), and the portentous gloom of “gathered to his fathers”.

A couple of metaphors aspire to the metaphysical. In the 18th century, you could slip your wind, and 100 years later be pushing clouds, while lesser mortals might be popping (or pawning) their clogs, or kicking the bucket.

Bang up to date, I have come across the unlovely “unalive” on social media, a neologism that confirms mine is a losing battle with the algorithms. Google’s chatbot advises that “died” on TikTok (and Instagram and YouTube) may be censored or flagged for review by the platforms’ automated systems, which can’t distinguish between someone planning mass murder and someone who has lost their mother. It suggests “unalive” as an alternative.

Furthermore, the chatbot chides, passed away is “gentler, more sensitive” than “died”, and therefore more comforting or considerate of the listener's feelings.

Well, not mine, it isn’t. I’m with the actress Jennifer Lawrence, who was once asked what happens when you die. “They make up the bed for the next person,” she replied.

Anyway, I will maintain my doomed one-woman campaign for slush-free death. And I’ll behave myself – just as long as no one ever suggests that my dog, when it dies, has “crossed the rainbow bridge” and waits for me in the afterlife. Some euphemisms really do deserve to die.

Photograph by Jeffrey Blackler / Alamy